


ProwlxJazz Community 10th Anniversary Fics

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [61]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Drabble Collection, M/M, ProwlxJazz10thAnniversary, Read the notes for each chapter if you're worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 19,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Collection of (probably) unrelated fics written for the 2017 ProwlxJazz community anniversary bingo challenge on Dreamwidth (previously LJ)here.





	1. Vampires/Supernatural AU

Prowl checked the body once more before calling it in. It was just like the others. It— _he_ was definitely dead, without a hint of heat or color to show the metal had been alive once. Prowl didn’t disturb the body so confirmation would have to come from the coroner, of course, but if this body was truly like the others then the spark had been brutally ripped out.

This was the third such body Prowl had found during his beat, and if precinct scuttlebutt had any truth behind it, at least two more had been found in the last two kilocycles. Five bodies, in sixteen cycles. Even Prowl, a lowly beat cop, could see the pattern of a serial killer. Yet no taskforce had been set up, and different investigators had been sent to each kill site. The department was treating each of these murders as separate, unrelated, incidents, so as not to alarm the public.

Prowl was only a beat cop; if higher ups said they were unrelated, then they were unrelated. Prowl’s job was to be a visible police presence on the streets, not investigate major crimes. He could even agree with the rationale that a public panic would only alert the killer and prompt him to move on.

Still, it wasn’t like he could help but _look_ at the scene while he secured it, waiting for the actual investigators to get here. There was no harm in committing the details to memory, in comparing those details to those scenes he had been present at.

There was one thing off, something that had not been there at previous scenes: a flyer for a local brothel. Prowl was familiar with the location. Prostitution was legal, but hardly considered moral. It’s presence _could_ be coincidence, something that had been on the sidewalk before the mech had been killed, but it was still a lead for investigators to follow up on.

Accordingly, he didn’t touch or disturb it. He just did his job and secured the scene and gave his statement to the detectives that did finally arrive.

Back at the station, filing his reports of incidents on his beat — in addition to the body, there had been three barfights, a shooting (by the time he’d arrived at the source of the sound, all participants had fled and there had been no injuries Prowl could report), two pickpockets, and a drug deal — he checked to see if anyone was following up on the flyer under the body. In response, he was quite soundly told that this wasn’t his job and to butt out.

Prowl didn’t want to butt out. People were dying.

He had often questioned the logic of the public being able to submit eyewitness accounts to the planetwide Violent Crimes database. Surely it must result in a lot of clutter and false reports, but right now he was glad of it. He wrote up as succinct a report as he could, including as many details as he could, then submitted it to the database. He didn’t know what sort of turnaround to expect from a non official submission, or if to expect a response at all, but with the case stonewalled at the local level, it was all he could do.

He did not expect someone to show up at his apartment the next day.

“Hey,” the stranger, a black and white mech with a blue and red stripe painted dramatically over his hood. “Prowl, right? I’m Jazz,” the mech flashed a badge indicating he was an investigator for one of the planetary law enforcement agencies — CAPPA — but Prowl would have to take a moment later to remind himself later which one it was. “You reported a sparkeater attack?”

_Sparkeater?_


	2. Pets and Animal Companions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little snip takes place in [my cat AU series](http://www.example.com/), where Prowl is a siamese show cat and Jazz is formerly-stray silver tabby cat. Have I mentioned yet how hard it is to write the adventures of critters whose idea of an adventure is to take a nap?

Jazz jumped up on the windowsill (effortlessly, of course, he was a cat) and raised his tail straight up behind him with just the end crooked to the side. Prowl, already on the windowsill, flicked his in a returned friendly greeting with a soft meow. Prowl and the other fluff fluffs were  _ always _ meowing; Jazz honestly didn’t know why they felt the need. 

Whatever. Tail greeting returned, Jazz rubbed his head against Prowl. "Want me to clean your ears," he sniffed.

"Of course," Prowl meowed. Always with the meowing. 

So Jazz licked Prowl's ears. Prowl was the only cat who Jazz would lick ears for. He didn't even lick Ricochet's ears anymore! Prowl had the cleanest ears, not yucky at all. And Prowl never licked anyone's ears ever! Except sometimes Jazz, when Jazz was sleeping or tired or hurting and Jazz purred to get someone to comfort him.

Smokescreen would sometimes lick Jazz's ears — it was sometimes the only thing the tabby would sit still for - but Bluestreak refused to lick anyone's ears.

When he was done, the silver tabby cat squeezed next to Prowl on the windowsill (they were CATS; of course they fit!) and curled to let Prowl lay his head on top of him. The siamese was already warm. Sooooo waaarm....

Thusly contented, they napped. Naps were serious business!

Unlike Prowl, Jazz couldn't keep sleeping as the sun went down though. 

"Where are you going," the siamese meowed irritably when Jazz moved.

Jazz used his paw to straighten his whiskers (grooming was important too!). "Hungry." He was going to go outside and hunt! Mice to catch, territory to patrol, and if he was at the end of the block by moonrise, the human there would put a can of food out to go with the kibble!

"Hungry?"

"Hungry."

"You cannot be hungry."

Jazz huffed. "Sure I can!"

"You ate a whole can of food! Then you ate half of Bluestreak's!" Prowl's meows were gaining volume.

"Well if you fluff fluffs actually ate your food, then I wouldn't," Jazz hissed back.

"Don't call me a fluff fluff!" Prowl's meow as definitely closer to a yowl now.

Jazz waved his tail in amusement. "Fluff fluff!"

_ Growl! _

_ Hiss! _

**_CRASH!_ **

Laughing, as only a cat could laugh, Jazz escaped out the magic door and into the night.


	3. Anger Management

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** violence, nsfw, plug and play interfacing, really angry sex

The runner stalled as he entered the office and walked into a nearly-tangible wall of _anger._ He almost turned tail lights and ran, but the occupant's demonically glowing yellow optics pinned him in place. He'd been spotted; he couldn't run... thinking of it in those terms gave Prowl a curl of pleasure amidst his utterly foul mood. From the door, the dim lighting of his terminal — the only light in the room — threw the planes and angles of his frame into sharp contrasts that loomed out of the darkness, even when he was simply sitting at the desk.

This mech would not be the first to run.

Not that he was running. Yet. His fans stuttered, but he stepped fully into the office and jumped when the door closed behind him.

"H-here," he said placing the file on Prowl's desk while the tactician glared at him. Then without waiting for a dismissal, the junior officer fled.

Prowl glared after him for a moment.

"Do ya have t'scare 'em?" Jazz said from the darkness behind him, where the junior officer hadn't even seen him there. Prowl’s glare changed targets instantly. "They're kinda adorable before ya get yer claws in them."

 _"Adorable_ won't help them against Decepticons," Prowl snarled.

"Oh?" Jazz said lightly, like he wasn't locked into a room with a seemingly-demonic Praxan. "Is that what it's about? Yer trying t'prepare them fer combat."

"What the frag do you care?" Prowl growled, standing up to loom over the smaller Polyhexian. "Want me to stop?"

"Pickin' on mechs who can't hardly defend themselves ain't very Autobot-like," Jazz egged the mech on. "We're supposed to be all about truth and justice and slag like that... Bossmech definitely wouldn't approve of scaring the recruits just because, what? Yer havin' a bad day?"

"You," Prowl stalked forward, "know perfectly well what the problem is."

"Yer pit-demons're on strike?" Jazz laughed.

With a roar of his powerful pursuit engine, Prowl pounced. Jazz tried dancing away, but the office didn't give him much room to maneuver. He found himself slammed into the wall; stars flashed across his HUD.

A knife appeared in Jazz's hand as if by magic and he slashed through the thinner armor of Prowl's abdominal plating; the former-policemech didn't even seem to notice. Prowl's knee slammed into Jazz's wrist, crunching the connections to uselessness between it and the wall. The knife clattered to the ground and away. Jazz's cry of pain was choked off, drowned in the sea of Prowl's rage.

Prowl didn't give the spy time to recover his wits; Jazz was smashed into the wall again, then again as Prowl turned him to face the corner. Policemech training took over at that point and Prowl kicked Jazz's feet apart so he was utterly off balance and pulled his hands behind his back, locking cuffs around him before Jazz could shake off his stunned state.

Prowl's breath and anger was loud in Jazz's audios when he did and black and white plating burned against his own. He could feel Prowl's fingers flexing against his plating, resisting the urge to rend into the helpless saboteur.

Jazz giggled, and wiggled in Prowl's grip. "That all ya got, mech? No wonder the 'Cons're winning."

With a sound no-one would ever associate with the cool, collected, sparkless tactician Prowl played for the rest of the Autobots, Prowl ripped away the cover on the networking port on the back of Jazz's neck and slammed a cord into it.

The spike-trap on Jazz's port sank its teeth into the sensitive plastic, deep enough into the invading cord to make most mechs scream; Prowl didn't even flinch. The full weight of Prowl's tac-systems fell against Jazz's firewalls.

.

.

.

A joor later, neither of them had so much _overloaded_ as they had fought each other, mentally and physically, to a standstill and the excess energy cascaded painfully through overclocked, exhausted systems. They collapsed into a heap of overheated plating; Prowl groaned and shakily lifted himself off Jazz. Almost blindly he unlocked the handcuffs, then rolled them both over so he could collapse against the wall himself with Jazz sprawled over his lap. He didn't try and unhook his cord from Jazz's port; escaping the needle trap required a medic's help, or it'd do even more damage to his cord, and he wasn't in the mood right now to have it replaced again.

They were both going to need a medic this orn. Jazz's wrist was smashed; Prowl was still bleeding from the wound under his bumper and his optics flickered erratically while a dozen viruses chewed their way through his systems. But he wasn’t going to call for one until Jazz was ready.

Gently he ran one hand over Jazz's sensor horns and down his back. Jazz's optic band flickered on dimly and he hummed contentedly. He looked drunk as he grinned up at Prowl. Masochist.

"One of these orns," Prowl said reproachfully, "I will not let you goad me into that."

"'Suppose you'd rather throw yer desk?" Jazz snickered.


	4. Testing Boundaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Takes place in my [White Collar Fusion AU](http://archiveofourown.org/series/786510) series. A slightly different view of Criminal!Prowl

Steps behind him alerted Prowl that he was no longer alone at the train yard. He turned and wasn't sure if he felt sour or satisfied to see Jazz approaching. He turned back to the yard. Even with the Enforcer there, it would only be a quick dash in his alt form across the tracks to the station. He could lose the officer in the crowd and be on his train, with the tickets he'd bought only a few minutes ago under an assumed name, before the mech could stop him.

"Your tracking anklet is accurate to within one nanometer," Jazz informed Prowl as he came up to him and stopped, looking across the train yard to the station as well. "You know, in case you were wondering how I found you."

Prowl knew how Jazz knew where he was. As long as Prowl wore the tracking anklet, Jazz could pull up Prowl's location on his HUD at absolutely any time, for any reason. He'd have to find a place to cut the tracking anklet before boarding the train but that was always a given; he wished it were possible to cut it, then drop it into someone else's belongings, to sow confusion, but the thing's computer would register that — and where — it had been cut off, rendering that deception a waste of time.

He knew _how_ Jazz had found him here. What he wanted to know, but wasn't going to ask, was how Jazz had known to check _right now,_ when Prowl literally had one foot outside his radius, his ticket to freedom in his subspace.

Jazz just gave him a sidelong look. "Give me the train ticket."

Psychic abilities were not outside the realm of possibility, Prowl thought as he handed Jazz the ticket.

Prowl expected Jazz to haul him away from the edge and back to the station, where this escape attempt would be recorded, his deal with the Enforcers revoked and Prowl sent back to prison. Getting caught attempting to escape was right up there with getting caught committing international bank fraud on the list of actions that would land him back in prison instantly. Instead, Jazz just stood there with him.

"I get it," Jazz said suddenly.

"Do you?" Prowl truly doubted it.

"It's pretty tempting, being able to look at the world outside an invisible cage and unable touch it. Everyone wants to be free." Prowl huffed. He was not impressed with mere platitudes, no matter how true. Or how honestly delivered. "Whatever," Jazz huffed. "You don't have to believe me. You just gotta know that if you run, it doesn't matter where you go, I will catch you. Anklet or no, there isn't anywhere on Cybertron where I won't find you. You will never really free as long as I've got a reason to chase you."

Prowl just shrugged. Tonight had been more wishful thinking than a _plan._ Jazz was smart, was one of the few mechs Prowl acknowledged was nearly his equal, but he wasn't infallible; Prowl could figure out how to escape Jazz's wardenship with enough time to plan.

Prowl could do anything, if he had enough time to plan.


	5. Mistaken Identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short that takes place either in the same 'verse as Riz's [Time and Place](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9130153) or my [December First](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8719240/chapters/19990531) chapter of _Christmas Cookies_. Which you imagine it part of doesn't matter as much as a couple things shared by both of them: Prowl is a cop, Jazz is... definitely NOT a cop, they're still friends, and their relationship is platonic instead of romantic.

Jazz resisted the urge to stop playing his violino and give the officers a sour look as the crowd around him melted at their approach. Busking was illegal without a license — which Jazz had. For the market district. Prowl had given him the busking license as a gift right after they'd officially become friends and it was still one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone had ever given him and Jazz treasured it. But as good as the market district was, it was simply dead of traffic — of the paying kind — during working orns. Which is why Jazz was in the business district. Where he didn't have a license. And even if he did, the park was off-limits to "beggars".

But Jazz wasn't busking. He was _practicing_ ... and if people just happened to think he was good enough to give him tips for his practice session, well, _Jazz_ wasn't going to stop them. He hadn't put out his tip jar, he wasn't soliciting. Mech had to practice before he could perform, and it wasn't like he had a _home_ to practice at.

That was his story and he was sticking to it.

So nope, don't care the police had just driven off his crowd! Because he didn't need a crowd to practice. He was just going to keep practicing until...

"Are you Jazz?" The lead officer asked.

Jazz let the light of his visor finally flicker on as he stopped playing and made a show of looking around like he wasn't sure what had happened to interrupt his practice session. He was a bit surprised he didn't recognize the officers; he thought he knew everybody who patrolled this part of town.

With someone he knew he might have taken the indignant route, asking why the frag they were interrupting his practice-time, it wasn't illegal to _practice_ in the park... but not recognizing the officers meant he didn't want to jump straight into the offensive.

"Sure am," he answered as he put his violino in its case without removing the money in it. "What can I do fer ya officers?"

"Jazz," the one in the lead, with the purple accents said sternly, "you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Be apprised that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

"Hey wait a minute!" Jazz said as he let the second officer cuff his hands behind his back. He knew better than to let them add a _resisting arrest_ charge to whatever list they already had cooked up; even if their current charge wasn't worth slag, resisting arrest was hard to refute if you protested at all. "You ain't even told me what I've supposedly done!"

Neither mech answered.

Well if they weren't going to say anything, neither was he. It almost physically hurt to stay silent, his instincts, honed from dealing with Prowl and his colleagues, insisted he start spinning out a tail asap, lay the groundwork for the not-lies he'd be telling in the interrogation room. But without knowing what this was about, he didn't dare. Silently he watched them collect up his things, securing everything he owned in evidence bags and he clenched his fists in thwarted anger. That was _everything_ he owned! And even if he was released, chances were he wasn't going to get any of it back.

He didn't mind crashing on Prowl's couch and sharing his food when times got rough, so the shanix wasn't such a big deal, but he couldn't make a living without his violino, his busking permit, his records (his lockpicks, his shell game props, his magic tricks, the scented polish he used so one of the mechs he entertained might take him home for the night...). At least he didn't have any circuit boosters on him right now. Just a pack of mildly intoxicating cigs, which were legal, and a bottle of high grade in his pack with the rest of his fuel (they couldn't _prove_ he'd stolen those treats!... could they). It wasn't even an _open_ bottle high grade. It was a lousy gift compared to a busking license or a place to stay, but it was expensive. Jazz had bought it legally; he just hadn't had a chance to give it to Prowl yet. He did have a knife, but it was was smaller than the maximum legal size to carry in public, and fit the classification of a costume or utility knife, even if it was pretty obvious the only reason a mech like Jazz would have something like that was to use as a weapon.

"Do I get a receipt?" he asked icily, doing his best to imitate Prowl's cold tone. He didn't actually expect to get one, but he couldn't just let them take everything without some sort of protest.

"Yeah," the lead officer said, suddenly less stern and more tired. Jazz guessed it was harder to maintain the facade of _righteous justice_ in the face of a cooperative suspect who carried everything he owned in a backpack. "I'll write it up for you in the wagon."

Jazz resisted the urge to slip the cuffs in the wagon while the officer wrote up his receipt. Just like the mouthing off, with Streetwise or any of the usual mechs who brought him in for his usual antics, he wouldn't hesitate, but he doubted this mech had a sense of humor.

Jazz didn't recognize the station or _any_ of the officers he was dragged past on his way to the interrogation room. He clutched the receipt for his things as he was handed off to another mech, then another, until he was almost dizzy by the time he was cuffed to a chair in an interrogation room. Where he waited.

Jazz actually wasn't very familiar with the waiting game in interrogation. Speeding and other traffic violations didn't usually merit an actual interrogation, for public intoxication they just threw him in a cell overnight, and the rest was minor enough they didn't usually try to rattle him. He was familiar with the procedure, true, but it wasn't like he'd lived through it much. So yeah, he was rattled by the time the mech with the purple accents came back to speak with him.

"Hey mech! You ever going t'tell me what this’s about?" Jazz knew speaking first wasn't the best thing he could have done, but he couldn't afford a lawyer.

The mech didn't sit. He stood — base intimidation and Jazz wasn't ashamed to admit it was working — while he reviewed the file in his hands. “Lieutenant Barricade presiding over interview with Jazz,” the mech stated for the transcript almost as an afterthought.

"You ever gonna answer me mech? Don't ya gotta tell me what I'm being charged with?"

"You have quite the record," Barricade said instead. "Prostitution, solicitation, trespassing, larceny, assault... I'm not surprised you eventually escalated to murder."

"MURDER!?!" Jazz threw himself back in his chair as far as the restraints would let him. "What? No! I ain't killed nobody!"

"So you didn't break into the Booze Brothers' Liquor Store?"

When Jazz robbed a place, it was for cash, jewelry and other lightweight, easily fenced goods. Only once, when he had been starving for almost four kilocycles, he'd broken into a clinic to score the drugs inside. Highgrade might net him some cash, true, but it was heavy and legal, so it just wasn't worth it. But he couldn't say he'd _never_ stolen highgrade, and he didn't remember any shop called the Booze Brothers'; if an incident of breaking into that shop was on his record the officer would pounce on the ‘lie’. "Not recently," he hedged.

"How recently is ‘not recently’?" Barricade pressed.

"Haven't stolen booze, much less from that shop, fer a couple'a vorn, at least." Jazz tried to give the mech a charming grin, widening his visor in innocence as he met his purplish-red glare.

No effect. "So you weren't there two nights ago?"

"No mech." Where had he been two nights ago? "I was with a friend, at his place. We had dinner'n watched a couple'a vids together."

"You were at a friend's house?" Incredulity practically dripped from the words. "With a friend."

Feeling a little bit like he could get out of this in one piece (and get his stuff back!), Jazz nodded. "I'll give ya his number, y'can call 'im. He'll tell ya." He rattled off a comm code and dutifully, the officer wrote it down.

"Did you go anywhere that might have recorded a credit number, or was there anyone else with you that might confirm you and your... _friend's,"_ Jazz bristled at the mech's leering tone; mech probably thought Jazz was directing him to someone he'd convinced to take him home for the night, "whereabouts?"

"No," Jazz said sullenly. "Ain't no one else there."

"I don't believe you," was the flat response. "Because, you see, we have a witness putting you entering the shop through one of the back windows." Jazz couldn't help but puff up his armor in offense; if he'd gone into a place through the back, he wouldn't have been careless enough to be _spotted._ "You tripped the alarm breaking into the cash register, and when the owner who lived upstairs, came down to investigate, you stabbed him. Forensics will confirm it was the same knife you had in your possession when we arrested you."

"If that's what ya think, mech, then I ain't got nothin' more t'say until I got a lawyer," Jazz bit out. Not that he could afford a lawyer, but saying he wanted one would get this mech to stop trying to get him to admit to something he never did!

"Alright," Barricade leaned back. "If that's the way you want to play it..."

On some signal Jazz couldn't see, two younger officers came in to bodily escort Jazz to a cell.


	6. Crystal Gardens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… uh. Apparently I’m not resolving that cliffhanger today. This is neither a continuation from yesterday, nor what originally had in mind when I originally requested this prompt be on my bingo card. Have _two_ short, unrelated ficlets about crystal gardens.

##  Peace

.

.

Once, the crystal gardens of Praxus had practically stretched from one end of the city to the other. Not literally, though it had been possible to wander from the nobles' district to the slums without ever setting foot or tire on a road by going from one garden to the next. Some had been public works, built and maintained by the city for the enjoyment of all; others had been closed off, private affairs created for the pleasure, and for the status of the owner. Still others had been a mixture, privately owned and cared for, but opened for the pleasure of the public, secret, winding paths of glittering crystals. Secret paths, from one place to another.

Prowl had followed the paths, lost in his senses. He'd wandered from sound to silence, through color and shadow and light, drawn forward by magnetic resonance, until he'd been so overwhelmed he'd had no idea where he was anymore. It had been... transcendent. 

By the time he'd met Jazz, the city and its gardens had been turned to glass and dust. 

It was watching Jazz dance, that first unexpected day when he'd truly  _ seen _ Jazz for the first time. 

Of course he'd seen Jazz before. They had worked closely together, even long before they'd both attained rank where such cooperation was inevitable. They were a good fit for each others' abilities. They reinforced each others' strengths, covered each others' weaknesses. But Prowl couldn't say he'd paid attention. His spark had been heavy with loss, shattered like the crystals of his city.

He couldn't say what had changed. He had seen Jazz dance before. 

Maybe it had been that that day, Jazz had been as broken as Prowl was. Polyhex hadn't fallen, but Prowl learned much later that Jazz's cohort, his concubines, his twin, had perished. Jazz hadn't been there, but he had certainly felt the bonds break. Like crystal. His dance had been as sharp, as broken as Prowl's spark and he'd finally seen the saboteur. 

Finally felt a measure of what he'd once felt in the crystal gardens of his home.

.

.

##  Leisure

 

.

.

Prowl had a tiny garden on his desk. A tiny, living replica of the once-great gardens of his home. 

Jazz had suggested it, when they'd woken up on this planet. The war was never far from anyone's thoughts, but they did have energon enough not to starve, resources to make repairs, and what Prowl thought was a mind boggling amount of leisure time.

Prowl hadn't quite realized how much leisure time Earth really had afforded them at first. He was so used to overclocking everything in an effort to just keep up that convincing his systems, his spark, that there really was  _ nothing to do _ during his off-shift time had taken, well,  _ time. _

Time, and the intervention of their resident saboteur.

Jazz had done the research. It was a human thing he'd found, to make tiny replicas of various people, places, things from various materials. They sold kits for it, and many of the most serious hobbyists did their work without pre-made kits. It was, he had explained when he'd finally presented his research to Prowl, a way of taking a place, or a moment in time, and making it their own.

Then he'd deposited the tiny kit he'd put together for Prowl on his desk and left.

Curiosity had overcome Prowl's reluctance to take time off work — as Jazz knew it would, after all nothing Prowl was currently working on was urgent — to look at it. 

A tiny replica of one corner of the Imperial gardens in Praxus. His favorite, and he'd wondered how Jazz had known.

It had taken months — such a strangely short span of time, made long by this alien thing called  _ leisure _ — for Prowl to finish Jazz's present. 

Then Jazz had given him the next one.

And the next.

After that, Prowl had expanded the tiny miniature, building, growing, and altering, until he had the entire Imperial Complex, palace, gardens and all, in full, living, color across his desk.


	7. Imprisonment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows directly on the heels of [Mistaken Identity](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27172569).

There was something about this particular suspect that Barricade just couldn't put his claws on. He watched through the cell's security cameras while he — Jazz — paced back and forth. Guilty behavior.

But even without murder, this mech had more than enough to feel guilty about, though the psych evals that had been done on him during his two short stints in prison — for prostitution and for assault, respectively — had all agreed that Jazz  _ didn't _ feel guilty for his crimes. He enjoyed the freedom his lifestyle afforded him, never let himself be tied down to anyone (except, and only occasionally, his twin), and never felt even a moment's guilt for it. Ricochet, his twin, was no more than an  _ accomplice, _ not  _ family. _

(Another investigator, over in Precinct Nineteen, who’d dealt with Jazz before had put his personal opinion in the file that where it came to Jazz and Ricochet, the psychologists obviously couldn’t find their afts with both hands and a map, but, when it came to a self-described  _ entertainer _ like Jazz, Barricade trusted the professionals.)

The witness was enough to make the arrest. With two assaults on his record, Barricade was more than convinced a mech like that would have no qualms about killing. 

That didn't stop something from nagging at Barricade about the case.

It was the suspect. He was too cooperative for someone who had a conviction for assault (at least in Barricade's experience); he ignored the plea of self-defense.  _ Everymech _ claimed to have only been acting in self defense. Assault was a crime of temper, and Barricade had done everything he could to get Jazz to show that temper. And he had, but it had been much milder, more focused on indignant yelling. icy declarations, and sullen pouting, than any sort of physical violence. Hardly the sort of mech who, in Barricade's experience, would stab someone twenty-three times because of an interrupted robbery. Once, maybe. Someone capable of going that cold certainly could stab someone once, twice even, to make sure the victim died from it. But twenty-seven was too much overkill for someone who hadn’t taken a swing at Barricade when he’d gotten up close and personal.

There was the psych evals. Those had emphasized Jazz's independence, and didn't fit with the gang sign that had been left sprayed in fresh paint on one of the shelves next to the corpse. That mech would never have joined a gang; wouldn’t have ever given up his “freedom”, subordinated himself to street gang’s hierarchy, tied himself down to a street gang’s territory.

Then there was Jazz's alibi. THAT didn't fit with the psych eval. It had indicated that (though the twins stayed in fairly close contact) Jazz wasn't close enough to Ricochet to call on him when in trouble — or vice versa. Certainly not close enough to use glyphs like "best friend" and "soul mate" incorporated into the name, as he had when giving his alibi's name. The name didn't sound like a derivative of "Ricochet" anyway, and Barricade had wondered if this wasn't an accomplice for the robbery, and it had been this mech, not Jazz, who had been wielding the knife. That almost fit. The witness had only seen Jazz, but a second mech could have entered the shop at another point. A new romantic partner helping with the robbery, who'd turned violent when discovered? A second person would fit some of the forensic evidence left behind at the scene.

What Barricade had not expected when he called that number was a stern, exasperated, business-like mech who was gainfully employed and too busy to take the shift off for his "soul mate".

Jazz was proving a mech of contradictions, and those contradictions kept nipping holes in his case like scraplets. Oh, Barricade could certainly get the mech convicted for Goldwire's murder. Jazz's record and the witness was more than enough for that. Whatever alibi Jazz was trying to call on wouldn't hold up in court. Forensic matching on the knife — which Barricade already knew was the same shape and type as the murder weapon — would only be icing on the oilcake.

But just because Barricade had enough to convict the mech, didn't make the...  _ not fitting _ things go away.

The solution was to take the case one bit of evidence at a time, like he always did. Get forensics to confirm it was the same knife, talk to Jazz's alibi, then take it from there. Either things would come together, and Barricade would go ahead and file everything with the DA, or they wouldn't and he'd have a new angle to start working from.

On the security screen, Jazz continued to pace worriedly in his cell.


	8. Falsely Accused

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct continuation of [Imprisonment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27218244).

It wasn't unusual for Prowl to get phone calls with caller IDs originating in other departments, or precincts. Vice and Organized Crime worked hand-in-hand with each other quite often and perps rarely stuck to the zones drawn out by precinct. If a suspect's name came up in the database with Prowl's name attached, he got a call. Sometimes more than a call.

Getting those calls on his personal line was more unusual but had happened in the past, so when this one came he answered it without hesitation.

"Hello? What can I do for you?"

There was a slight hesitation on the other end. "Hello? Is this 'Prowler'?" The glyphs were so casual it almost didn't sound like Prowl's name at all. Gone were all the markers for his police function and rank, replaced with glyphs like  _ best friend, sidekick, _ and  _ soul mate. _

There was only one mech who called Prowl that. "What's Jazz done now?"

The mech on the other end of the line sidestepped. "I cannot give out the details of an ongoing investigation. I need you to come down to Precinct 24 to answer a few questions."

Prowl frowned. This was starting to sound less and less like a routine call from one officer to another. Which... made a certain amount of sense. Prowl had arrested Jazz so many times in the past that he could fill out the streetmech's details on a booking form by memory, but both Jazz's file and his own had notations that he could no longer be involved with cases regarding Jazz. Jazz was a pickpocket, petty thief, con artist, prostitute, and (often illegal) busker. He also had a list of drunk and disorderly and reckless driving charges as long as Prowl was tall. While Prowl was fairly certain Jazz didn't deal in drugs, he suspected he was an occasional user, but had never been able to prove it. Vagrancy, at least, was not a charge that Jazz had been arrested for recently; since they had become friends, Jazz had taken to sleeping on Prowl's couch instead of under bridges when he didn't have any other place to stay — which was the reason Prowl couldn't be involved in cases against Jazz any longer, and why he’d transferred from Vice to Organized Crime. Conflict of interest. Jazz was a lot of things, but an  _ organized _ (both in the sense of being connected to other groups as well as, well, being organized) criminal he was not.

But the call on his personal line instead of his work line, the use of Jazz's extremely familiar moniker, the borderline hostile tone of the investigator... Prowl suspected instead of being called in to consult on whatever crime Jazz was being accused of now, he was being called in to provide an alibi.

He drummed his fingers on the table. "Best friend" and "soul mate" or not, Jazz knew better than to ask Prowl to provide a false alibi.

"Of course," he answered. Unfortunately the paperwork he was working right now was too urgent to leave; he needed to have this filed with the District Attorney before the end of the day or the case would fall apart. "Regrettably, my current task is pressing. I can head to your station as soon as I am finished." Prowl evaluated the stack of work he had to fill out for this case and pessimistically estimated, "Probably at the end of my shift."

The other officer weighed that. "It would be best if you would come immediately."

"Even if you came directly to my workplace to retrieve me," Prowl said sharply, "I could not leave before this was complete. So unless your plan is to arrest me as well..."

"Of course not," the mech assured. "This is just a routine interview."

"Then I will see you at the end of my shift."

"Ask for Lieutenant Barricade when you arrive."

.

.

.

Precinct 24 was not much of a beacon of order in a city besieged by chaos. Prowl's precinct may not have been in perfect repair, but it at least was clean. Twenty-four looked like it had to be scrubbed free of graffiti daily, and even that daily scrubbing couldn't get rid of the grime. Idly, Prowl wondered what Jazz had been doing in this section of town; fleecing tourists, pickpocketing, knocking over vending machines, and illegal busking kept the mech mostly in the nicer parts of the city, nearer Prowl's precinct. The last time (that Prowl knew of) Jazz had been in the rougher areas, he'd been there to keep Prowl from getting himself killed.

Well he wasn't getting answers idling outside next to the curb. He could probably get answers by going home and seeing if Jazz was stealing the contents of his pantry again, but whatever alibi he was here to provide for Jazz would be stronger (or at least more honest) if he could say he hadn't spoken to Jazz about it first.

Inside, he sidestepped a perp being escorted to the booking counter to speak with the receptionist. "I'm Detective Prowl, Organized Crime, from Precinct Nineteen. I'm looking for Lieutenant Barricade," who hadn't specified which department he was in when he'd called, and Prowl hadn't bothered to check; knowing Jazz's usual trouble he was probably Property Crimes, Vice or Traffic. "He should be expecting me."

The receptionist, a bored, overworked mech with faded neon green highlights on his black and white uniform paint, gave Prowl a once-over as though evaluating if this was worth his time. "Barricade you say?"

"Yes."

Apparently he was happy to put in a call in order pass off his newest problem to someone else because he opened the intercom directory and paged the Lieutenant.

Barricade wasn't too different than the receptionist when he arrived, save that his faded accents were a much more dignified purple. He had the perpetually harried appearance of a cop whose caseload never let up and was always urgent. The once over he gave Prowl was much less bored and much more hostile. When he spoke, he sounded tired. "How can Homicide help Organized Crime today?"

_ Homicide? _ Barricade was  _ homicide? _ What the frag was Jazz doing mixed up in a murder investigation?

"Actually," Prowl said, careful to keep his voice mild, "you called me. You wanted to talk about Jazz."

Barricade just looked at Prowl, dumbfounded. "What?"

"You called me," Prowl repeated. "You wanted to do a routine interview about Jazz. He didn't tell you who you were calling to provide his alibi?"

"Apparently not." Barricade said. He covered his optics with his clawed hands and visibly reset his thoughts. "Okay. We can do this. Let's get you settled in an interview room and we'll get started."

Prowl only nodded and gestured for the other officer to lead the way.

The impression of a run-down, overworked precinct continued as Prowl was shown through the station and to the interview room. A young, junior officer met them outside to hand Barricade a trio of files before scurrying away. Copies of Jazz's rap sheet, Prowl's service record, and the current case file, obviously. 

"Here," Barricade said, gesturing for Prowl to take a seat facing the cracked one-way mirror. "You want me to get you something to drink before we get started?"

It was a ploy to leave Prowl in the room for a few kliks, to evaluate how he reacted to being left alone, get him uncomfortable so his answers would be more genuine, and probably give Barricade a chance to familiarize himself with Prowl's file. For a moment Prowl debated if he wanted to play along. 

Not really. What he wanted to do was get home and track down Jazz and shake him until the answer of why he was involved in a  _ murder _ fell out. "No thank you. I have plans this evening, and something tells me this is going to take longer than I originally thought it would."

Barricade did not dignify the second half of that statement with an answer. "Plans?" he asked casually, even friendly, as he slid into his own seat and opened the first file, unashamedly taking that moment he needed to go over it in front of Prowl. 

"Yes," Prowl said. "I have plans for dinner. At home," he said, before Barricade could ask. "I'm expecting a friend." Nevermind that the only friend Prowl really had was Jazz and those plans involved his own interrogation into what the frag was going on.

"Then I'll be brief." Barricade said. "I need to know where you were two nights ago, and who you were with."

Prowl cast his memory back. Two nights ago... "I was working on a case until tenth joor," which was quite late for someone who was supposed to get off-shift at the sixth, "then I drove to my apartment. The drive takes two breems in light traffic, three if traffic is heavier and I'm afraid I did not keep track that night so I couldn't tell you exactly when I got home." Barricade nodded to show he understood and Prowl should continue. "Jazz was already there." Jazz was a much better cook than Prowl was, and buying ingredients was cheaper than buying pre-made meals; since Jazz had begun freeloading at Prowl's (and Prowl had let him) the difference in cost had become important and Jazz was usually courteous enough to cook for them both those nights he was there, instead of taking the heat-and-serve meals Prowl bought for the nights he wasn't there. Given the recipe printout Prowl had found on the counter with the pile of dirty dishes that night, "Jazz had been there at least two joors before I arrived. We ate. There was some sort of horror movie marathon on the vidscreen. I stayed up to finish the one that was on, and one more, then went to bed. I think Jazz watched one more before he retired for the night. He left," judging by the warm breakfast he'd left for Prowl, "only a few minutes before I got up. I left for work soon after." 

Jazz had done the dishes too. He was a conscientious freeloader, at least.

Barricade glared down at one of the files. Prowl guessed it was his own service record, which was exemplary and contained the notation that he was friends with Jazz. Prowl was aware that it was not a particularly strong alibi, and if he had been anyone else, like one of Jazz's club or street friends saying "we were together and home all night, no, we didn't go anywhere and no one was with us" it would, in fact, be considered a weak alibi. But it was one thing for Barricade to question Ricochet or Blaster's word, and quite another for him to question Prowl's.

Finally Barricade sighed. "I have to ask: is there any way to confirm either of your movements in or out of the apartment on the night in question?"

"Mine," Prowl answered, "can easily be confirmed by the building's security system."

"And Jazz's?"

"His as well, if he used his key." Prowl gave Barricade a self-deprecating smile. "He doesn't always."

Barricade barked out a laugh. "Well, that's honest at least. I'll check the security system anyway, but for now... I suppose he's free to go. Promise me you'll take him home and keep him out of trouble."

"I'm his friend, not his keeper," Prowl said. Jazz was  _ here? _ He’d been  _ arrested _ for this? The urge to just grab the conmech and shake him intensified. "Jazz will be in trouble every moment of his existence."

"Yeah," Barricade flipped through the file Prowl recognized as Jazz's official rap sheet. "I see that. See if you can keep him from getting tangled up in anymore murder investigations, anyway."

Prowl made a gesture of noncommittal affirmation with his doors as he stood. "Would you let me know when this is resolved and how? I know you cannot appraise me of an ongoing investigation, but when it is no longer ongoing, I'd like to know how he got mixed up in this."

"No promises," Barricade returned the noncommittal sentiment. "Thank you for coming in. If you'll wait where you came in, I'll have Jazz escorted to you."

"Of course."  _ How the frag did you end up a  _ **_suspect,_ ** _ Jazz!?! _


	9. Drunkenness and Inebriation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear community mods: It really is over three hundred words, not including emojis and timestamps, but you're going to have to take my word for it.


	10. Task Oriented

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied/Referenced violence, hacking and maybe other nasty stuff (depending on where your imagination takes you.)

Jazz wasn't panting — yet. Prowl couldn't actually hear, or scan, anything from his agent's systems. His stealth systems were running full tilt, which meant his interrogation protocols were just as active. That wouldn't do, not at all.

He checked the cuffs again. It generally took Jazz less than a breem to slip them, so Prowl had to check and recheck often that they were still secure.

There were times Prowl regretted taking the Autobots' Special Operations department under his preview. Jazz was head of that department, true. He planned the missions, managed his subordinates. Trained them. Made them dangerous enough to survive and gave them a safe place to be dangerous.

Jazz allowed them to be dangerous; Prowl made sure they were safe.

And none of his agents was more dangerous than Jazz. Mirage needed a friend when he came back from missions. Bumblebee needed a parent. Smokescreen needed a drill sergeant. That's what they needed to feel safe, the persona Prowl played with them to draw the thin veils of civility back over their most dangerous programming directives. Jazz, though, trusted no one, nothing. There was no role Prowl could play to assure Jazz he was safe, to tell him the mission was over. Jazz could only be pushed through it.

Already the room and Prowl both showed the scars of their struggle. Jazz did not, never would, _submit_ to the cuffs. He fought Prowl, fought what he knew would happen if Prowl, _when_ Prowl, caught him.

But Prowl had a lot of practice catching Jazz, in all sorts of circumstances. Decepticons, even Soundwave, often never knew the saboteur was lurking around, but Prowl didn't have the luxury of ignorance of Jazz's presence. He had a lot more practice catching Jazz than Soundwave did.

Catch Jazz, cuff him... that was always step one. Accomplished.

Checking the cuffs again, Prowl prepared himself for the rest of his tasks. He had to break past the interrogation protocols to _Jazz_ so he could build himself back up himself, or else he couldn't be trusted outside his missions. That was Prowl's job as his handler.

That didn't mean he had to like it.


	11. WILD CARD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct continuation of [Falsely Accused](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27241263).

Jazz had never been so glad to see a familiar mech in familiar police paint in his  _ life. _ "Prowl! Buddy! Soulmate!" The officer escorting him down the hall tightened his grip. "Ouch!" Jazz complained theatrically; Prowl wasn't going to let them do anything so he didn't have to tolerate that in the name of not antagonizing his jailers anymore, "I ain't struggling, y'ain't gotta be so Primusdamned rough!"

The mech he was calling to looked up from the friendly looking conversation he was having with the holding area's warden, a grey mech with red chevron. Meeting Prowl's icy stare, the officer escorting Jazz let go of him and even refrained from pushing him as he released the cuffs. Then he stomped back down the hall, away from them. 

The grey warden frowned after him. "It looks like I'm going to have to give them a talking to," he said. "That was inappropriate, no matter how annoying you've been," he directed to Jazz. 

"I haven't been annoying," Jazz protested. Prowl gave him a disbelieving look. "Haven't! I ain't been hassled by anyone at this station before!"

"Is  _ that _ all it takes to get you to behave?" Prowl said dryly. "I'll pass it on." Jazz growled. Unfazed, Prowl turned back to the warden. "We need his things."

"Is there a receipt?" the warden asked.

Jazz growled again. "That—" Prowl shot him a look and he modified what he was about to say; he could complain later, "Barricade wrote one when he took everything, but it got taken when I was put in here."

Prowl turned expectantly to the warden. 

Who winced. "Okay. Let me see what I can do."

The grey mech poked at the computer terminal, then eventually went back to the storage area to retrieve something.

Jazz resisted the urge to tap his foot impatiently. He was glad Prowl was here. Not only because he wasn't sure how he would have gotten out a murder charge — he was a lot of things, but he wasn't a killer! — if his alibi hadn't checked out, but because Prowl would know best how to get his things back. Those things represented his whole life! Just because he  _ could _ start over with a shiv and a smile didn't mean he wanted to.

The warden returned. "This is a bit of a kerfluffle, isn't it?" he said conversationally while he poked the terminal more. He looked up and smiled at Prowl's more neutral expression. "In my defense, I wasn't on duty when your friend was brought in. I'll just check this,"  _ this _ apparently being the receipt, "out and mark it returned to its owner, then use it to see what's up with the rest of everything."

"Thank you."

Experimentally Jazz tried his comms, only to find they were still blocked. Which made sense, they were still inside the holding complex, weren't they? And Jazz knew from experience that the holding cells had comline dampeners. At the real prisons, they surgically removed the comsuites too. Not pleasant. Though he'd made some of his most significant connections in prison. But it also was a lot harder to avoid the gangs in prison.

"It looks like your friend's things were checked in as evidence," the warden eventually said, "and some it is still being processed as such."

"That mean I ain't getting it back?" Jazz couldn't help but burst into the conversation. He'd been quiet and patient enough.

"It means," Prowl said, with an air of finality, like he was able to dictate to the universe with his words alone, "that we can retrieve some of it by visiting the evidence area."

"Could do that," the warden said, much less sure. "But some of it won't be available yet. Your knife and the engex had both been tagged as potential evidence."

"Thank you for your time," Prowl said politely, then with a sharp turn swaggered away.

Jazz and the warden both watched him leave.

"Gotta admit the mech is sex on four wheels when 'e gets commandin' like that," Jazz drawled, knowing Prowl could still hear him. Those doors didn't even twitch, but he'd pay for the remark later.

"He's pretty handsome," the grey mech said, more respectfully. "Are you, ah, you know?"

"Swappin' cables? Naw. Just friends." Jazz grinned. "You thinkin'a givin' 'im a try?"

"What? No!"

"Maybe should. He likes ya."

The mech sputtered.

Matchmaking attempt over, Jazz trotted to catch up with Prowl.

"You could," Prowl said dryly, "just once,  _ refrain _ from meddling in my interfacing habits."

"Pfft," Jazz scoffed. "If you had any interfacing habits, I'd refrain from meddlin'. You liked him though, I could tell." With Prowl it was pretty hard to tell, but he'd always been able to read the mech, even before they'd tried being friends. He'd backed off when Jazz had been escorted up, but before that, he had definitely been flirting with the warden. Prowl flirting. Which didn't look like flirting at all, but the mech had no friends at all so Jazz kind of thought that engaging someone in more than the bare minimum of conversation counted as flirting.

"Bluestreak is a very nice mech." Prowl's doors went up, in a signal that Jazz should drop the topic now.

Jazz did not drop the topic. "So you do like him! Should I go back and give him your comm code?"

"No."

"I could—" 

"No."

"But—"

"Jazz," Prowl said, exasperated, "if you do not desist, I will arrange for you to spend a night or three in one of  _ our _ holding cells."

Jazz shrugged. "As long as y'git m'violino and stuff back, I could use three hots'n a cot fer a while."

Prowl's steps faltered, then he determinedly sped back up to his normal gait. "Are you having difficulties?"

"Not really," Jazz said, because it was true. He was too well fed for him to be having any sort of  _ real _ difficulties. "Just doin' fewer gigs and more busking," and fragging tourists so they'd take him back to their hotels and feed him, "than I'd like." 

He was an entertainer. He  _ liked _ entertaining people, whether for a crowd of dancers in a club, or a single mech twining his cables around his own. What he didn't like was going hungry, or sleeping on the cold sidewalk, when he couldn't find someone to fall in love with for the night.

"You know you are always welcome in my apartment," Prowl said. "I have extra fuel."

"I know how much fuel y'got, mech," Jazz assured. 

"Then you should also know I do not resent sharing it with you," Prowl responded quietly.

"Yeah." Jazz did know that; he just wasn't sure how long Prowl was going to tolerate Jazz taking blatant advantage of him. One gift of a bottle of highgrade — which he didn’t even have anymore to give Prowl! — did not repay him for decivorns of freeloading. He was just waiting for Prowl to get fed up with him like Smokescreen and his other attempts at cohabing had, and follow their lead and kick him out on his aft, screaming that he never wanted to see Jazz again. Well, Prowl probably wouldn’t scream at him like Smokescreen had, but Prowl did have a taser and Jazz wasn’t sure which option was worse. 

He covered the uncertainty with a grin. The inevitable crash and burn at the end of a relationship wasn’t something for him to worry about right now. "But being a holding cell at yer station would keep Lieutenant Stick-Aft off my case for a while."

The tilt of Prowl's doors indicated he wasn't fooled by the change of subject, but he didn't press. He never did. Instead "Stick-Aft?" he asked lightly. "I thought that was my nickname."

“Yer  _ Detective _ Stick-Aft,” Jazz teased. “Barricade outranks ya.”

“If you were hoping to flatter me into forgetting to interrogate you myself about this,” Prowl said with as they entered the evidence area and over to the mech overseeing things here, “you are going about it the wrong way.” Then all humor drained out of his posture and gaze, and it was with icy, don’t-mess-with-me optics that he addressed the officer here. “Hello…”


	12. Aphrodisiacs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/warnings: Noble/arranged marriage AU, Asexual Prowl, Implied mutual non-consent.

"Are you sure about this?" Jazz asked. The prince of Polyhex was now his bonded in the optics of their families and all those who had attended the lavish ceremony. Soon, heralds will have traversed the breadth and width of both their realms to announce that the second creation of Praxus' king and the heir of Polyhex were now One. A beautiful bonding ceremony, as befit a beautiful couple.

In truth, Prowl and Jazz were rather ambivalent to each other. They had not even met before the ceremony, had not spoken much at all since the marriage programming had been installed in them both. 

The prince, Prowl silently admitted, was quite handsome. And he was quite considerate to ask, and to do so sincerely; Prowl did not even feel the marriage programming stir at all to bend him to the higher ranked mech's will.

"They will check our sparks," Prowl pointed out logically, "to ensure it is done. We have to, one way or another, bond. I do not feel desire — which is why the drink was provided to us. Our choices are for you to use the marriage programming to force me," Jazz's face and field both flexed in disgust, "or to administer the drug."

Jazz shuddered. "I hate this. Sure I knew whoever my genitors picked for me wouldn't have a chance to fall in love first, but I always thought that I could make it enjoyable. For both of us."

"I would enjoy the effects of the drug," Prowl pointed out, quite logically he thought.

"It wouldn't be  _ you." _ Jazz scoffed. "If interfacing isn't something you enjoy, then you shouldn't be forced by a stupid bonding. We're married, but I'd have liked the chance to make our wedding night something you'd enjoy."

The prince was a romantic. Despite having never had a use for romanticism before, Prowl found himself endeared by this.

"We have eight joors before we're expected to appear and have our sparks checked," Prowl pointed out. The drug's effects would only last for one or two at most. Even if they took a whole joor to recover from the bonding... "That means we will have five joors afterward to spend together doing things more enjoyable."

"Mech, we do this, and you'd be perfectly justified in hating me. I'm not going to force you to stay the whole night after essentially raping you."

This was not Prowl's choice, it was true. Nothing would or could change that. But it wasn't Jazz's choice either and Prowl really felt it would be illogical to hate him for what they were both being forced to do. But maybe it was Jazz who would be unable to stay with Prowl afterwards. "Then we will wait until it is nearly morning."

Jazz let out a startled laugh. "You're really determined."

"There is no other choice," Prowl said insistently. "We must bond. But," Prowl modulated his field and door posture into something he hoped was more inviting than was his wont, "I would rather spend tonight getting to know you, than arguing."

"One night to fall in love?" Jazz asked rhetorically. 

"If we must."

 


	13. Secret Admirers

Jazz was everyone's favorite secret crush. So he was used to getting all sorts of interesting anonymous gifts. It was a thing the two of them had a lot of fun laughing at whenever a new one showed up. Usually finding who had left a particular gift wasn't difficult. Most mechs were distressingly predictable. Blaster had dug up a full copy of the music for  _ Requiem of the Dark Prime _ then synthed the whole thing, one instrument at a time, using his own systems. Jazz had almost agreed to frag the mech for that alone. He probably would have too, if it hadn't been for Prowl. 

Not that Prowl was in the habit of stopping Jazz from clanging whoever he wanted. They had what humans would call an "open" relationship. Most Cybertronians did really. Fidelity was a human concept, and Jazz had a reputation as a berth hopper.

But it was one thing to bang someone's bolts, have a no-strings one night stand (or even a spring fling), but it was quite another to lead someone on and truly shatter the spark of someone looking for a “something more” that Jazz couldn't give.

Hard to give his spark to one of the hopefuls who showered him with anonymous gifts when he'd been bonded to Prowl longer than Optimus had been Prime. Nor would he want to.

Those he couldn't figure out just by what sort of gift he'd received he could usually deduce by where they'd been found. Mirage was really the only one who could have left a music box locket on his desk without tripping alarms. Jazz’s office might have started life as a broom closet (the choice had annoyed Prowl a lot and no one had ever said Jazz couldn't be juvenile when he wanted. No one was quite sure how, since their species didn't have a juvenile period but Jazz managed somehow), but now it was a locked, alarmed, booby trapped bunker Red Alert was downright jealous of. Mirage was the only one who could have gotten in there without being caught on camera.

But the little cube sitting outside his door now had him stumped. The place — the middle of the hallway — was so accessible that literally anyone could have left something there for Jazz to find.

But the REAL mysterious thing was the cube itself — and the gift it contained.

A game.

With no to or from specified, of course both Jazz and Prowl had assumed the gift was for the saboteur. Presumably, if the mech in question wanted Jazz to consider him for a frag, then whoever-it-was would sign it somewhere in the game itself and all Jazz had to do was play.

Points for novelty.

Somewhat surprising the game wasn't a romance sim. It was a fantasy adventure tale, starring a main character that looked a lot like Jazz himself did.

Lots of points for novelty.

It didn't take Jazz long to become frustrated, however. Prowl had to stop him from throwing the cube against the wall when the first major obstacle turned out to be a complicated puzzle-lock on a treasure chest. Prowl took a look.

HE solved the complex puzzle in less than two seconds, granting the game’s protagonist a magical synthguitar and leading directly to the next task: to compose the song that would become his first spell — something Prowl’s processor was entirely unsuited to. With realization, they looked at each other.

Who would want them BOTH?


	14. Zombies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/warnings: Fantasy AU, dark

The twisted corridors of the cave stronghold were clean.

It was just one more piece of evidence that there was a necromancer here. The other major evidence being, of course, _he was still alive!_ After being caught in the murderous crystal garden outside (note to self: complain to Primus about being given access to a _hide from undead_ spell, but not a _hide from plants_ one), the terrorcons hadn't eaten him. Anytime the dark energon created abominations controlled their murderous and darkly ravenous desires, it could only mean there was a necromancer afoot.

As if Jazz, Inquisitor, assassin, and undead hunter for the Church of Mortilus, didn't have enough problems. Of course they'd suspected this outbreak was being controlled by someone, which is why the Prime had sent _him._ Otherwise the Church would have just sent the contingent of Paladins currently battling the horde at its edges. Paladins were great for beat-sticking the terrorcons until they stopped twitching, but necromancers made the usually mindless hordes into another monster entirely.

Jazz was supposed to have taken care of that little problem by sneaking into the terrorcons’ source and stabbing the necromancer while he slept. He had not expected the crystal garden full of murderous plants.

He needed a new plan!

Hard to do while while being dripped on by the zombies carrying his helpless frame through the twisted tunnels of the necromancer’s lair. The fluids stank heavily of dark energon and rust. Eewww. The crystals had done a number on him, injecting a venom that had left Jazz limp and weak to be captured.

Finally the terrorcons dragged him into a wide cavern that looked like it was inhabited by something that actually cared about things like not being bored. Books — both old and fragile tomes of bound flimsy and newer slim data sheets — lined the walls; one was even out and left open next to a decaying overstuffed chair placed under a sputtering halogen light. More light streamed in from windows cut into the side of the cavern to let in a view of the setting sun.

Jazz hoped the terrorcons would drop him to the ground to prostrate himself before the doorwinged figure silhouetted in one of those windows. Ego was one of the common traits of those who fancied themselves masters of life and death, and Jazz could have used the moment to _do something_ to the jackaft!

The mech wasn't that stupid though; his mindless minions kept firm hold of Jazz.

“The valley below us was a battlefield once,” the mech said after a moment. Jazz would have rolled his optic, if he'd had any; why did the bad guys just love the sound of their own voice? “The armies of Prima and Megatronus clashed here, leaving the ground thick with corpses made restless from the corruption of the dark energon that had been spilled out.”

“Lemme guess,” Jazz snarked. “All that untapped power, how could someone like you be expected to resist?”

“Well if the lot of you would just _leave me alone,”_ the mech huffed, turning finally to face his captive. Jazz’s spark froze with fear. _Oh, Primus, father of all sparks, grant strength to this faithful one…_ — The mech’s optics glowed the pure, sick purple of dark energon, and Jazz could see the same glow shining dimly through the mec—no, the _monster’s_ armor. A lich! “Since my master fell on Prima’s sword,” Frag, one of Megatronus’ generals even; this day just kept getting better and better, “I have kept myself to myself. But every few centuries someone gets the bright idea to build a mining town on my doorstep and Prima’s followers are never far behind.”

“So you're not evil, you're just misunderstood?” Jazz scoffed. “Unicron’s taint is an unnatural stain on the body and soul of Primus. Your minions will not be able to protect you forever!”

“Perhaps one day,” the undead Praxan allowed, “you will succeed. But not today. Once you have been taken care of, I will take the bulk of my minions and clear out of the caverns, retreating deep under the tainted battlefield. Your Paladins will battle through what remains and when they they find it, they will conclude it the source. The area will be proclaimed tainted and the mining town will be evacuated. Then I will be left in peace until all this has been forgotten.”

As a plan, it wasn't a bad plan.

“If you kill me,” Jazz whispered fiercely, “I swear my spark will go to one of the Deathspeakers of my order and tell her all about you before Mortillus takes my spark to the Well.”

“I know.” The mech gestured and a severed arm crawled out of the shadows carrying a cracked glass cube. The liquid inside glowed the same purple as the ancient Praxan’s optics and Jazz recoiled. No!

The terrorcons held him fast, and Jazz’s struggles had no effect. The necromancer, the _lich,_ too ignored Jazz’s attempts to get away; he picked up the cube and slowly walked to Jazz. Prayers tumbled from the holy inquisitor’s vocalizer in desperate hope of warding off the abomination, but had no effect.

“I’m sorry,” the monster said, “but my existence needs to remain secret.” Dark energon dripped from his fingertips and became claws that caressed Jazz gently before holding his head still with unnatural strength. “You’ll be smarter than the others, so you might as well call me Prowl.”

Jazz screamed as the dark magic was forced down his throat.  



	15. Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/warnings: sadness, grief, deathfic

It was what humans might have called a "music box." It wasn't box-shaped at all. A human might have even called it a ball, or burr, but it wasn't. It was an icosahedron.

Made from incredibly thin sheets of metal, it was held together entirely without glue or welding — a rarity in Cybertronian art, though less of one in certain human art forms Prowl knew. It was beautiful and precise — it had to be to hold its structure — and Jazz had constructed the outer shape to most appeal to Prowl's aesthetics. Precision and simplicity combining to create something fascinatingly complex. That was what scientists and tacticians knew with the surety of instinct: nothing was complicated. Everything could be broken down into simple shapes, then built back up to create a political situation, a battlefield, a universe.

A music box.

Prowl shifted the shape in his hands to examine a new face and something shifted inside. The sensors on his doors picked up a small round shape. A ball bearing or something of that nature. It shifted, it rolled in the space inside, and settled into a new space. Mechanisms of pure clockwork — another rarity in Cybertronian art forms — took their energy from the movement of the ball bearing inside and unwound.

Music flowed out from the clockworks inside. It was light and airy and reminded Prowl of Jazz dancing the night they'd met. There was an undertone of heaviness in the music, just as there had been that night. Prowl had seen Jazz in all his carefree glory, but hadn't known at the time that Jazz had been dancing away his grief. What Jazz had been grieving, Prowl still didn't know. Jazz had never spoken of it and after that first evasion Prowl had never asked again. 

The song wound to an end and Prowl wanted to hear it again. He twisted the icosahedron in an effort to get the ball bearing inside to resettle in the same place. But it had been designed to be unpredictable even to Prowl's massive processing power — much like it's designer — and a new song started to play.

Rather than shake it in an effort to get the song he wanted, he let the change in music guide a change in his memories. The heavy, passionate beat summoned an entirely different side of Jazz, made him want to reach out and touch the mech again.

But he couldn't. Memories, and a music box, were all he had left. 


	16. Courtship Rituals

Jazz, Ricochet, Blaster, Firestar, Arcee, and Mirage (who was standing several paces away, trying to pretend he was entirely uninvolved with this), were out looking for some fun. Interfacing. Mirage had told them that over in the big cities like Iacon there were things like nightclubs and stuff where mechs and femmes went to hook up and cross cables. But the others were pretty sure he was making things up.

How were you supposed to convince a mech (or, more importantly, his  _ family _ ) to let you cross cables when you couldn't even hear each other whisper? But Mirage insisted it was a real thing. Apparently mechs took off bits of their armor (painful!) to show off more of their sensitive protoform and danced together in one big orgy of movement until they found someone, or several someones to sneak off with.

Mirage was full of slag. Always telling tales. As if any creator-group would let their precious creations out of their sight long enough to do something so barbaric!

They were going to show him how it was done tonight!

It was clear and cold in the village, and they were slightly tipsy (an essential component of doing this!) for courage, but not  _ too _ drunk (also essential!) or else they’d be unable to sneak around with any sort of coordination. Everyone practically knew everyone and so the pack of young, horny mechanisms knew which households had similarly young, horny mechanisms who might be convinced to entertain a suitor for the night.

Blaster thought some of them would have a good chance to sneak in and not get thrown out of the window if they called on the minibot pack. Bumblebee had a rep as willing to take on pretty much anyone, as long as they were gone in the morning so they wouldn't have to actually get married, but Cliffjumper was a light sleeper, temperamental and he and Brawn roughed suitors up before throwing them back out the third floor window they'd snuck in if they woke up before talking their way under Bumblebee's sheets. Arcee and Ricochet were in the process of egging each other on, convincing themselves to do it.

Jazz though had his optic band on another house.

The Constructicons had new, modern locks on all their windows and set traps to wake them up if anyone snuck into their room to court any of their three creations; they were diligent about chasing off suitors. So far no one had gotten as far as even attempting to talk on of them into letting them under the sheets.

But Jazz had talked to Prowl a lot while sneaking away from his chores. Shared food. Given gifts. Had even promised to stay for breakfast (at which point they'd be married!). He was determined to go through with it! 

Blaster noticed which house Jazz was looking at and laughed.

"You'll never make it," he predicted. "Just going to end up getting thrown out the third story window like everyone else."

Maybe, but Jazz was still going to try. Prowl was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird mating rituals for the win. Apparently this is a [real](http://all-that-is-interesting.com/bizarre-human-mating-rituals/2) [thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_hunting) in some parts of the world.


	17. Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note/warning: non graphic depiction of torture.

_Soundwave,_ Jazz thought, holding desperately onto the fact that he _could_ still think. He hadn't been broken yet. He was still consciously bulwarking his interrogation protocols, changing and adapting them with the sort of remembered notes and improvisational encryptions that gave the Decepticon fits. _It has to be Soundwave._

No other Decepticon interrogator had that one’s approach to breaking a mech after all. They were too wrapped up in their sadism to bother with the really psychological tortures. Pain was a way to tax a mech’s mental reserves until he didn't have the bandwidth to run his own firewalls, true, but it was hardly the only, or the most effective one. Soundwave was wasn't a sadist. He didn't enjoy pain. He had a goal — break through Jazz’s firewalls to the valuable data beneath — and wasn't going to waste effort on simple, ineffective, torture.

Jazz huffed out a laugh, or at least he thought he did. Locked in his own encrypted thoughts, he couldn't even hear if his mental command had reached his body.

Any, _every,_ interrogator took or broke his visor. Jazz’s nonstandard optic band was an obvious weakness. But only Soundwave had bothered to understand that Jazz's weakness wasn't sight. 

It was sound.

His comsuite had been the first thing removed. Nothing but static here to hear, but Jazz would have liked to listen. But nope. Prisoners didn't get the opportunity to send distress calls. The radio from his alt form had been next. Snip, snip. No music. 

Vocalizer had followed once Jazz couldn't stand the silence any longer and had started humming, audios when Jazz had started tapping along with the rhythm of the world. Soundwave didn't need Jazz able to either hear or speak to get his answers.

After that, he had been moved somewhere, he'd felt that, and now he couldn't even hear his frame tick.

So Jazz wove the music into his encryptions. But he could feel the enforced silence take its toll. Soon…

The presence tapping at the edges of his frayed firewalls changed and before Jazz's overtaxed mind could truly ponder what that meant, the new hacker spoke. 

“Hello, love.”

And _sound,_ wonderful _sound,_ flooded his mind.


	18. All Tied Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short snippet/ficbit that takes place after the end of [Every Breaking Wave](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11634522/chapters/26166138). 
> 
> Notes/warnings: Barbarian AU, consensual kidnapping, gender bending.

Jazz bit through the ropes in the dark of the first night. She was exhausted from a day of riding the grazers at Prowl's breakneck pace away from the sea. She could no longer hear the shore or the koekoea and other birds that lived where water met land all across the Rust Sea. It had been  _ exhausting _ and all Jazz had done was relax in her beloved arms while Prowl had done the hardest work of actually controlling both creatures as they trotted along.

Wrapped up in her mate's arms, Jazz actually hadn't felt inclined to try and run during the ride. Not only would it have been hard to bite through the ropes while in Prowl's arms, but she didn't really want to leave.

Ricochet didn't agree. Jazz's twin had definitely figured out what had happened by now; she was  _ mad. _ Jazz could feel her even now as they'd settled down to sleep,  _ anger _ and  _ determination _ burning through their twin-bond. Ricochet was thoroughly  _ pissed _ that her still-hurting twin had been taken. Surely she suspected who had taken her too; Jazz had sparkmerged with Prowl barely a few hours after she'd been taken, as soon as she'd woken from the Praxan's sleep spell, when for almost three seasons Jazz had sworn she would never feel happy enough with another to sparkmerge again. 

They hadn't bonded though, not yet. There was still time for Jazz to escape, for Ricochet to rescue her. Jazz wanted nothing more, of course, than to bond but Prowl wanted the chance to prove herself worthy and Jazz would not dishonor her by not making the attempt to escape.

She needed to get back to the sea, or at least to her twin. Jazz could feel that Ricochet had chosen to forgo recharge to gain distance on them during the night. The grazers Prowl had brought to ride and carry their supplies were only barely faster at a trot than a warrior on foot; Ricochet was closer than Prowl suspected, Jazz was sure of it.

And even better, Prowl's spirit, Sundance, had wandered off to hunt as Prowl herself had settled down with her arms around Jazz to hold her. Jazz wasn't wiggling free without Prowl noticing in the night. But she was finally unobserved long enough to bite through the ropes binding her wrists and hide the trailing ends in her fists.

Then she settled in to enjoy her first night in her beloved’s arms in almost three seasons. Really, Jazz couldn’t be happier.

Jazz may not know as much about Praxans as she'd thought when she had first taken Prowl, but she knew cats. She  _ was _ a cat, after all, even if her own spirit manifested quite differently than Prowl's.

"Chut! Chut! Here kitty." Jazz called to Sundance in the morning. She sat on a dark grey rock and held her bound hands out to Sundance to pet the creature watching her. She kept the bitten ends of the rope out of sight and wiggled her claws temptingly, promising that her scritches would feel very good, able to get to all those itchy bits and seams of her plating that Prowl's blunted fingertips probably couldn't reach. "Chut-chut!"

Intrigued, Sundance came over and, after a sniff, graciously allowed Jazz to scritch her. She had grown into a sleek, powerful example of a shipcat, not at all gawky and awkward. Black plating gleamed, and silver spots shone like the stars that Prowl loved. No longer a kitten, she was a powerful little hunter. Like Prowl herself. Jazz was so happy and proud for Prowl!

Prowl looked over and smiled indulgently, then turned back to getting the grazers ready to travel. It took a while, like hauling up an anchor and unfurling the sail, Jazz guessed.

With Prowl not watching, and her spirit suitably distracted, Jazz slowly unwound the ropes from her wrists, careful not to disrupt the rhythm of her scritch-scratches along Sundance's plating.

With a grin, she set the ropes aside and with a final pat to Sundance's head, stood.

The cat opened her optics to see why Jazz had stopped and yowled a warning to her femme that their captive was free. Prowl whirled, a spell already on her lips and glowing on her fingertips, but Jazz's own spirit came in the time between one sparkbeat and the next.

With a flash, Jazz disappeared into the forest. Cursing, Prowl ran after her.


	19. Dangerous Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct continuation of [All Tied Up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27507306)
> 
> Notes/warnings: Barbarian AU, consensual kidnapping, gender bending.

Prowl was glad she'd had a plan for this and gotten the riding zap pony ready before the one holding their packs. Jazz was fast, faster than she'd expected, but the pony was faster. The thick tangle of forest kept them both from transforming, but barely hindered the pony.

There were spells to enhance a creature's speed, but Prowl held them back. She could catch up... _there!_ Prowl slowed the pony's breakneck pace so she could concentrate.

A word, a gesture, and sticky webbing formed between the crystals, snaring Jazz and halting her.

Jazz gave her a smile full of feral vicious fangs. Savagery practically dripped from her and with a wordless snarl Jazz pulled against the Web spell, nearly breaking free of it.

For a moment Prowl froze, remembering the last time she'd seen that look in her mate's optic band. She had summoned the fishing cat spirit that was her own spirit guide to aide her. Prowl was no longer its prey, something to be chased, but it was still terrifying to witness.

Jazz snarled again, ripping at Prowl's spell with supernatural strength and claws.

Prowl almost backed off and let Jazz escape. She had fallen in love with Jazz, she _wanted_ Jazz and everything she represented, but could she truly live with the savagery of her mate's spirit?

She resolved herself. She had to. Because she had come too far, given up too many things, learned too _much,_  to lose Jazz — again! — to her own fear. Another word, gesture, and she flung a coil of rope out towards Jazz. The magic she had learned to harness from the time she was harvested guided its movements. Animate Rope coiled and knotted the rope around Jazz's ensnared frame. Only when she was good and trussed up, not just her hands but her feet too did Prowl let her Web spell fade so she could approach with the zap pony.

Jazz's frame jerked in its bonds; with a snarl she tried to bite Prowl's hand and with a shudder Prowl remembered Arcee's description of the wounds those teeth could inflict.

That, she recalled, is probably why Jazz gagged me. She remembered waking gagged, she had assumed it was to keep her from casting magic, but Jazz hadn't ever hesitated to remove the gag once Prowl had woken up and was communicating sensibly. In hindsight, she thought that had less to do with her spellcasting and more to do with the fangs; even if Prowl couldn't inflict such nasty wounds with her teeth, Jazz had probably just done what she knew. _Coo~ruu-ing_ softly, as Jazz had, Prowl stroked her plating and thought. She had a Sleep spell memorized, but wasn't sure it would work while Jazz was possessed by the fishing cat, and she hadn't come prepared with a gag.

She kept her soothing nonsense vocalizations. How long could Jazz remain possessed by her spirit? Would it only retreat when Jazz dismissed it, or was there a time limit? How long ago had she called it, at the beginning of the chase, or only after Prowl had cast the Web?

Prowl didn't have the time to wait here and find out. Already Jazz's escape had delayed their departure by several breems, and Ricochet would be somewhere behind them. _She_ wouldn’t be bound by the trade season’s tradition of nonviolence; fighting was allowed to retrieve kidnapped kinsmen.

Suddenly Jazz made a—a _sound._ It was like nothing Prowl had ever imagined from a femme’s vocalizer, like the roar of the cat that was her spirit. Prowl, once she got over her startelement, was fascinated.

She was quite a bit _less_ fascinated when she heard an answering roar from the forest.

Frag! She’d hoped Ricochet was still further away. Left with no choice (except letting Jazz go which _wasn’t an option!_ ) Prowl tried the sleep spell.


	20. Truth or Dare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't do a ficlet yesterday because I wasn't feeling well enough to write much. Or answer comments. Or anything. Fortunately, there are fewer prompts than days in the month so I've got a bit of leeway. Though hopefully it won't happen again. :D:D

Most mechs, including most wartime medics who had been general practitioners before the war had broken out and thus not ones involved in the development, testing, and maintenance of Onboard Tactical Calculation Computer Networks, tended to think it was the onslaught of data, or nonsensical things, that caused mechs equipped with them to lock up and crash. It was a reasonable assumption, Prowl acknowledged. Some mechs suffered from crashes caused by those things even without an Onboard TacNet, and the emergency treatment of a mech simply prone to crashed and one crashing from TacNet activity was essentially the same: hard reboot of the system affected followed by a soft reboot of the mech's entire systems.

Given that a TacNet exponentially increased both the amount of data a mech routinely dealt with, and the number of calculations triggered by nonsensical objects or actions, it was a logical conclusion that both of these things increased a mech's likelihood of crashing due to them

The issue with TacNet equipped mechs wasn't that increase in data, or a reaction to incongruous things that didn't fit conclusions of the environment that caused Prowl's crashes. It was both much more complicated, and simpler, in reality

The truth was that mechs inherently had a remarkable inherent ability to calculate and act on risks, without ever being aware of the underlying calculations. They took in information, then made decisions. It wasn't always the best decision, but they did it quickly.

TacNets were supposed bridge that gap, taking in, calculating probable results, and presenting them for decision making quickly enough that the mech could choose not just the best decision for a single soldier at a single point in time, but the _best_ decision for all the soldiers over the course of all time.

_There are more games of chess than there are atoms in the universe._

Chess, for all its hidden complexity, paled when when it came to the true complexity of a battlefield. It was no wonder most TacNet equipped mechs and femmes eventually put limits on the powerful simulator in their processors. Prowl, for all he wished he could calculate an end to the war that had plagued their race for so very long, had to limit his to predicting only a few seconds into the future, no matter what the situation was like. Just far enough ahead to pass orders and warnings to the fighters trusting their lives to him. Anything more would overwhelm his mind with possibilities and he'd never be able to stop crashing. He could give orders on a battlefield; he couldn't make policy.

But there were some decisions he could never make. The risks, as calculated by the TacNet were far too high, even in those few seconds it was allowed to calculate before he made a decision. Yes, he might gain a great deal, but he also stood to lose too much for the TaNet to ever condone the action. So he kept silent.

It wasn't the data, it was the risks. Prowl had to limit his calculations to what he could control, to the merest second before and after a decision was made.

It was enough to keep things manageable so he didn't crash. Usually.

All this was on his mind in the split second while Ratchet finished the reboots necessary to get Prowl conscious again. For one moment, he was calculating his risks like a normal mech. Information-reaction-decision. He onlined his optics and saw not Ratchet, as he had expected, but Jazz's worried visor looking down at him.

Information-reaction-decision... "I love you," he blurted out the words he never could in any other moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prowl's observation about chess is paraphrased from [this article](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-12/fyi-how-many-different-ways-can-chess-game-unfold). Inspiration for how the TacNet works came a little bit from [this episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-Then-Else) of _Person of Interest_ , which despite the tragic ending is still one of my favorites.


	21. Breaking the Rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows directly after [Dangerous Games](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27528297).
> 
> Notes/warnings: Barbarian AU, consensual kidnapping, gender bending.

Ricochet was as terrifying as Jazz had been the first time Prowl had seen what possession by the fishing cat looked like. More so, Prowl thought with a shiver. Then, Jazz had been focused on chasing her down, not on harming her; Ricochet had no compunctions right now, and it showed. Prowl's zap pony was skittish, leery, and Prowl couldn't blame it.

She needed to escape with Jazz, but the disadvantage of an overland chase was that she was never going to have a barrier Ricochet couldn't cross. Oceans, islands... When Jazz had kidnapped her, they had been mostly safe from those pursuing. Even when two (or more) boats were in the rescuing party, Prowl imagined that until the pursuers actually caught up and attempted to board the kidnapper's boat, it was a mostly peaceful chase. Prowl may have denied the twins their sea-born advantages, but in return she'd traded any barriers for pure speed. She would have no rest while Ricochet pursued her.

Worth it. Prowl prepared her first spell.

Ricochet stalked the few more steps closer to bring her in range, and Prowl let the Hold Person fly.

Prowl felt their wills clash. Ricochet resisted the spell and Prowl poured more power into it to overcome her. It was harder than the guards who had agreed to let her practice-spar with them; Ricochet — and the spirit possessing her — was not a creature with a weak will at all. But the spell held.

It would only hold for a short time, so Prowl didn't waste any time; she picked up the slumbering Jazz and tossed her over the pony's saddle. The zap pony huffed and almost reared at the sudden weight while in proximity to the dangerous _predator_ Ricochet was, but Prowl pulled it back down with the reigns and mounted herself. With a yowl, Sundance protested the rough treatment from inside her pouch, but for once Prowl ignored the little cat. She didn't have time; Ricochet would fight her way free of the spell any nanoklik.

She urged the zap pony to full speed back toward the camp where she and Jazz had spent the night.

Fortunately, Prowl had been almost done packing their supplies onto the second pony when Jazz had made her escape. She dumped her pouch with Sundance on top of Jazz as she dismounted.

The cybercat yowled in protest again.

"Make sure she doesn't go anywhere!" Prowl yowled back. Unlike the "spell" Jazz had used on Prowl to put her to sleep and carry her to the catamaran, which had kept Prowl unconscious for almost a full day, Prowl's Sleep spell was not a powerful spell and wouldn't hold Jazz long. When she'd taken Jazz from the island, the warrior had been already tired, and had thought the urge to sleep to be natural; the spell had only ensured it was a deep enough sleep for Prowl to gently move her from the rocks to the canoe, then from the canoe to where she'd left the zap ponies. Being forced asleep was quite different, and no one would stay asleep through Prowl's frantic flight now no matter how tired she was.

Sure enough, Sundance yowled that Jazz was awake as Prowl secured the last straps to the pony to hold down their supplies. To her relief, she heard Jazz huff out a far-too-amused but _sane_ laugh. Hopefully that meant the cat spirit had left her and Prowl wasn't dealing with them both at the same time.

Prowl felt a flicker of _encouragement, confidence_ and _love_ from Jazz as their EM intertwined. _She_ knew Prowl was going to overcome this, take Jazz, and prove herself worthy of being the barbarian's bondmate.

_That makes one of us._

"Are you going to bite me again if I get up there with you?" Prowl asked as she tied the second pony to the one they would be riding.

"Should," Jazz rumbled back with a laugh. "But I won't."

"Rebel."

"I want ya," Jazz answered simply as Prowl climbed up onto the saddle in front of where Jazz was slung over the pony's rump like a sack of gravel. Sundance grumbled that Jazz was a lot of trouble to go through just for a silly mate — words, well _meows_ neither of them truly felt. It was only the _very understandable_ fear of Ricochet dogging their heels from now on that was prompting the grumbling and Prowl scooped up the cat and the pouch to ride in front of her in relative comfort.

"You want me, but you won't bond to me until I've defeated Ricochet," Prowl said without rancor as she urged the zap ponies into a trot. She wasn't just fleeing headlong into the woods with no plan. Two cycles' ride from here was a Galifarian outpost. She didn't know what it had been used for, but she knew that it had been mostly destroyed in the civil war that had broken the so called "Empire of the Gods" apart. By whom, Prowl hadn't been able to find any record of, but she'd scouted the location before undertaking this venture. It was crumbling and rusting, but some of the walls still stood. It was the best place Prowl had to make a stand against Ricochet.

Two cycles' ride, but Prowl was going to have to do it in one, with Ricochet right on her heels the whole way.

"Can't break all the rules fer ya," Jazz drawled happily, though her position had to be the least comfortable one to ride a pony in ever.

No she couldn't.

Prowl heard the strange roaring sound that meant Ricochet was free and _pissed_  from behind her, and easily spurred the ponies from a trot to a canter.


	22. Outcast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo... I think I originally planned for the ruins to have an inhabitant, but they decided to get frisky instead, and it only _very loosely_ fits the prompt, but here it is anyway.
> 
> Follows directly after [Breaking the Rules](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27595542).
> 
> Notes/warnings: Barbarian AU, consensual kidnapping, gender bending.

She had scouted the ruins for their historical value, trying to tease out clues of why the the Galifarian outpost had existed and why a stronghold so far from the battle lines had been destroyed in the civil war that had left its Successor States independent. She was still trying to interpret what she and her research team had found, but she had also marked the ruins as a place to make her stand against Ricochet in the chase when she went ahead with her plan to kidnap Jazz. She was only one mage after all.

During her own kidnapping she had noticed how completely stacked in Jazz's favor the situation had been. She didn't have the skills she had needed to escape an experienced Polyhexian warrior, and Arcee and the rescuers from Praxus had only rarely been able to reach Jazz's boat to actually attempt a rescue, and were thwarted by her ability just move further out to sea. Now, as the kidnapper, working against the skills of both Jazz and her rescuer, Prowl was finding the odds so completely stacked in the Polyhexians' favor again she was starting to wonder how any kidnappings were successful at all! And usually there were multiple members of a mech's clan attempting to retrieve someone, not a single, persistent, warrior!

Jazz was unable to escape the ropes — a situation she seemed more than happy with — but that didn't mean she was giving in. Twice, she managed to wiggle off the pony and send herself crashing to the ground. Prowl was worried she'd injured herself, and the first time she stopped to check over her beloved's frame. Then she'd heard Ricochet roar in the distance, and knew Jazz was just delaying so her twin could catch up! After that, she had just picked Jazz up off the ground and tied her back to the pony as quickly as possible, resolving to go ahead and pop out all her dents when they _got to where they were going!_

The zap ponies were exhausted by the time Prowl urged them into the ruins and found the old, but still standing, stable she had decided to make her stronghold. She unsaddled them, fed them, and released them to wander around the stalls without bothering to tie them down. She worried that Ricochet would simply kill them for fuel, but ruthlessly decided that she needed the extra few seconds the ponies panicking would provide her. Then she hauled Jazz and the supplies up into the loft. With a sigh of relief, she dumped them both into the bed she had prepared of blankets and pillows and a nice mattress from the capital. There was more fuel stored here, as well as the gifts she'd brought for Jazz.

With a huff, Sundance made herself comfortable in the cat bed Prowl had made where her familiar could keep watch.

Jazz wiggled to make herself comfortable, then leered at the exhausted Prowl. "'M impressed, beautiful. Love nest'n defensive cave all'n one."

Prowl didn't look up from setting her Alarm spells. She wasn't taking any chances on Ricochet being able to sneak up on them. She set them for silent alarms only she and her familiar would be able to hear; she didn't expect Jazz to sleep through an actual attack from her twin, but Prowl didn't want to give her the few seconds hearing the alarm would give her to put something together in conjunction with her twin.

"S'cozy," Jazz drawled. "Y'gonna come up 'ere an'kiss m' boo-boos better?"

"Fun as that would be," Prowl murmured as she sank down, almost as tired as the ponies, "It'd be more useful to pop them out." Not to mention that, being slung over the zap pony's rump like a sack of gravel had to have left Jazz's entire frame stiff and sore, even without the falls exacerbating it.

"So," Prowl murmured as she slowly untied Jazz's feet so she could massage and repair her lover's frame. Jazz groaned in relief at the first touch, then again as Prowl's deft fingers loosened and relaxed tense cable. Untying Jazz was a risk, but Prowl needed to take care of her. No one wanted a mate who put the fear of losing their mate over taking care of them, as Jazz herself had demonstrated when she'd let Prowl go. "You've made yer first escape attempt. Duzzat mean it's time fer me t'shower ya with th'gifts I got'cha?"

"Sure," Jazz cooed happily.

Prowl worked her way up, noting that both of Jazz's rear tires were in perfect shape, before moving on, untying knots as she went. She stroked the flat planes of Jazz's shin armor. She had chosen her gifts carefully.. She had wanted things that would be meaningful to the warrior, but also things she could only get from Prowl, from her mainlander beloved. At the same time though, they couldn't be things that would interfere with her life as a Polyhexian warrior.

"You mentioned once," Prowl said softly, almost reverently, "that priest-mages decorated their armor by inlaying shells inta it, but that warriors didn't 'cuz it made th'armor brittle."

"Sure."

"Praxans decorate their armor fer special occasions," or at least highly ranked ones like Prowl and the others of her noble caste did. "We glue gemstones'n other," Polyhexians didn't have a word for temporary metal decals, "things t'our armor. Makes a femme really sparkle," she purred, untying more of Jazz's ropes.

As Prowl had hoped it would, _interest_ sparked in her field and visor. "Sparkle's good. Prolly need a full paint before y'do somethin' like that though."

Jazz's paint was degraded to the point of being more bare metal and rust than the sleek, bright lines Prowl remembered. "Yer beautiful as y'are," Prowl purred, as her massage turned less-chaste around Jazz's chest, arms and hands. She leaned forward and kissed Jazz's nearest sensor horn before taking the whole structure, faded grey paint and all, into her mouth.

Jazz bucked into her touch with a cry.

"Besides," Prowl said teasingly when she pulled back to observe the limp, excited Polyhexian in her love-nest, "They're like jewelry, y'can take 'em on'n off. Jus' takes a bit'a glue." Well, they could be rather easily knocked off and lost, but Prowl had searched the markets of her homeland for a more powerful glue that _should_ hold for more than a single afternoon and for a clear sealant that would hold up to Jazz’s lifestyle. And if she did manage to lose something, Prowl would replace it.

"Later," Jazz growled as she regained her composure and surged up to pounce on Prowl. "Merge first...if," she hesitated, no doubt remembering how hesitant Prowl had been with intimacy before. "If y'want ta."

 _"Yes, Jazz,"_ Prowl hissed back, nipping her way along Jazz's collar faring and enjoying her lover's responding shudders. "I want to."


	23. Secret Identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of [Secret Admirers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27387966).

It wasn't the first time a secret admirer of Jazz's had chickened out and never revealed himself.

As they finished the first game and had received another gift that would only appeal to them both, together — another puzzle game, one that had required quick improvisational skills and some pretty heavy logic — without receiving any hint of who it was, their attention had turned (together) to figuring it out on their own. Jazz put out feelers in the gossip network of the _Ark,_ while Prowl let his tactical computer be occupied by the question in his off-shifts.

The _Ark's_ gossip was less than helpful. When pressed, almost everyone would admit to having a crush on Jazz, but if anyone was harboring secret feelings for the "cold, stick-in-the-mud" tactician they were keeping it well hidden. Their only real leads were the puzzles themselves.

"Prolly Red Alert," Jazz grumbled as he fiddled with the first game. They'd found that restarting the game triggered a harder mode and randomized some of the puzzle-challenges' variables, while at the same time demanding more technically and emotionally profound songwriting to successfully cast the main character's spells.

Next to and half-under his bondmate, Prowl smiled indulgently. "I have to admit he is a logical choice in most respects. Red Alert is almost entirely divorced from your informal information networks." He took the game away from Jazz long enough to solve the puzzle-challenge, then handed it back so the character could wield his new spellsongs in battle against the monster released by the now-open door. While Jazz enthusiastically battled the monster, Prowl analyzed it, and eventually tapped the creature's weak points to guide the spells to the proper targets. It was a feature of the game that made it impossible to play the game alone, by simply passing it back and forth. Jazz's hands were occupied with the spell casting, Prowl needed to be there to aim them. "The problem," he said when they were done and could spare the attention for things other than keeping the Jazz-like game avatar alive, "is that while he has all the technical proficiency required, Red Alert does not have the musical expertise to create this."

"Ain't a lotta mechs who do," Jazz pointed out. "I'd guess Mirage, but th'tunes we're playin'," he played one of the spellsongs, a catchy, vibrant piece Jazz had written by incorporating a human four beat per measure structure that made it sound decidedly alien, "are totally not his groove."

"You have a better understanding of who has musical talent on this ship than I," Prowl pointed out. Idly he tapped a chest hidden from Jazz's view (but not the view of someone sitting next to him) by the game's terrain to guide the character to the hidden prize.

"Blaster's th'one who comes to mind," Jazz said as he opened the chest to reveal a more powerful version of the magical instrument his avatar used to cast his spellsongs. "Nice!" He equipped it and set about rearranging his inventory so he could carry the old one to the next town and sell it. He was low on gold and needed to buy the recipe for the newest healing potion variant that could actually keep up with the damage he was taking in combat. "But he don't like vidgames. He could program the thing, sure, but he wouldn't."

"So we are looking for someone technically proficient with both hardware and software, musically adept, and with an interest in RPGs," Prowl listed off.

"Ratchet?" Jazz suggested jokingly.

Prowl gently thwapped him across the helm, catching his sensor horn and sending sparks through his frame. "Close. I was thinking Wheeljack."

Jazz started to protest, then stopped. Rethought. Then rethought again. "Yeah I can see it, but — and no offense, partner, because I love you dearly — you're not exactly what I think of when I think of 'Wheeljack' and 'romantic partners'."

It was farfetched. Through Jazz, Prowl was pretty well-informed of the _Ark's_ gossip, including the facinating subjects of who was interfacing with who. Ratchet, the twins, Bluestreak... Wheeljack's partners tended to be outwardly passionate, which Prowl most definitely was not. "Maybe he heard about my cooking accident."

"Y'mean th'time you tried making Christmas candies and ended up with thermite bombs?" Jazz laughed. "Maybe!" He set the game aside and shook himself, and when his plating resettled, his frame language was a perfect match for Wheeljack's, despite not having a frame anything like the inventor's. But Jazz was a great imitator. "What?" he said in a perfect match for Wheeljack's voice. "You made _accidental_ thermite bombs and nearly blew up the entire officers' wing!?" Dramatically he swooned into Prowl's waiting arms.

Where he ruined the imitation by giggling.

“You have to admit it’s possible,” Prowl chided gently.


	24. Don't Ask, Don't Tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows [Secret Identity](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27642096).

Once per day the game sent a report back to a listening station, where plot progress, high scores, equipment gained, found, lost, sold, and other statistical data about the game was delivered via the internet. At the listening station the data waited, without even timestamps to tell when they were playing or when they had reached each objective. All the collector knew was that these were milestones they had reached since the last time he had collected the data from the listening post. As it was a very low-priority post, eavesdropping on the humans' Amundsen–Scott South Pole research station, it was not data Soundwave collected often. Often it was months between data collections at the site. Months to go over every byte of data he had, program updates for the game and new gifts altogether to keep Jazz and Prowl interested, and pine for the data he knew accumulated out of reach in the ice-bound southern pole of the planet.

"Months" should not have been so very long to a species whose lifespans were measured in millions of years, but even living separate from the human-infested surface, the Decepticons were not unaffected by the faster pace of life on Earth compared to their home planet. Where  _urgent_ had once been measured in months, it was now measured in minutes, and so every minute Soundwave waited was another he almost couldn't stand to do so.

And the songs. The songs were what Soundwave treasured the most. He passed them off as human-written drivel to any Decepticon interested, and blamed the Autobots for allowing the humans to appropriate their musical culture to any who paid enough attention to notice the Cybertronian overtones of the music. The truth was that the songs were what Soundwave treasured the most.

The songs, especially once they started showing the characteristic flare of Prowl's logical influence on their writing. They were love songs, written together for the mech courting them through the game.

Jazz and Prowl, Prowl and Jazz. Soundwave had long admired them both. In their own ways, they were both death incarnate on the battlefield. Together -- often together, though not always -- they fought, and the tides of war shifted to their whims. That they were outmatched by the Decepticons was no fault of their own. Prowl made Lord Megatron's forces fight for every inch of territory, paying in fuel and ammunition and lives for their inevitable victories. And Jazz... Jazz was a shadow, a knife, an explosion. All too often he had been Soundwave's personal opponent. On the battlefield of intelligence won, lost, taken, and destroyed, Jazz was a master in his own right, and for all of his efforts, Soundwave had never managed to capture the slippery mech.

Admiration was, perhaps, inevitable.

But admiring his enemies was one thing, attempting to court them quite another.

It was Earth. This damnable planet was twisting them all into new shapes. Earth had let Soundwave's surveillance on his ancient enemies get too close, too... personal. Millions of years before Earth had ever even existed, Soundwave could not have known of Jazz's love of music, or of Prowl's desire for a truly challenging game, but not a mere puzzle game, an RPG game with which he could pretend to be somewhere else for a while. He could not have known they were bonded; on Cybertron, they hid it too well. Mere years of watching here had revealed the mechs behind the mayhem, had turned admiration into infatuation. Years more had passed before he had decided to act on his infatuation.

He was sure they searched for the mech courting them, but Soundwave had no intention of stepping forward. Here, with distance and anonymity and carefully rationed data stripped of all useful intelligence, there could be trust. Once names, frames, _factions_ were brought into light, to be scrutinized for hidden motives real and imagined, the tiny flame of not-yet-relationship would be shattered.

It was better this way. In distance and darkness there could be trust, and with that they could imagine their so-devoted admirer hunched over his workbench, slaving away to write the perfect code, to express his devotion. With anonymity, they were free to feel what they willed for their mysterious admirer, to judge him only on what he was willing to devote to the gifts he gave them. With anonymity, Soundwave could imagine his feelings returned, if only by the slighted margin.

Anything else would be a disaster for them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! That's all she wrote... on this particular story arc, at least. This was *always* going to be how that gift played out, even back when I didn't intend to continue beyond the single ficbit. So congrats to all you who guessed Soundwave right off. Sorry to all of you who were hoping for a date, but it was never in the stars.
> 
> The last prompt is giving me a bit of trouble, so I might take a few days to work on it before posting, so don't worry if it's not up tomorrow. I'll have it done by the end of the month! I promise!


	25. Heroes and Villains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows directly after [Outcast](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27618030), and concludes that story arc.
> 
> Notes/warnings: Barbarian AU, consensual kidnapping, gender bending.

Prowl had only ever sparkmerged twice before, and, being much more experienced, Jazz recovered first. She took the chance to jump out the second floor window of the old structure while Prowl shrieked in offense.

Ricochet watched from the shelter of the crystals. At least her idiot twin hadn't given up on escaping  _ entirely. _

She also watched Jazz fall right into the net-pit trap and get tangled up in the ropes. She stalked forward to help and to her utter disgust she saw that Jazz, instead of trying to claw her way free of the net, was laying there comfortably. Radiating smugness, more than perfectly content to have her escape attempt thwarted.

"Ya stupid, blind, overly romantic  _ moron," _ Ricochet hissed down at the captured femme from the edge of the pit. "Y'shouldn't be gittin' comfy in those ropes; y'should be tryin' t'git  _ away _ from ‘er."

Jazz twisted to look up at Ricochet and grinned, showing off her fangs. "Can't. I'm caught good!" She was far too pleased about this development. "Can barely wiggle. See?" To demonstrate, she wiggled.

Ricochet did have to admit her twin was caught good.

"Still don't have'ta sound so happy about that," she grumbled. Investigating the edge of the pit she found the anchor rope and started hauling the net up out of the side of the pit.

"Why not? Am happy! She ain't lettin' me escape!" Jazz sure sounded thrilled. "She's so smart;  _ I _ wouldn't've put a pit trap here just in case!"

"Y'wouldn't've been so outta it y'let yer mate git away after a  _ sparkmerge," _ Ricochet snarled. "Yer an idiot. A stupid, blind, overly romantic—"

"Y'said that already."

"— _ idiot!" _

"Yeah," Prowl said as she appeared in a nearby shadow, "but she's MY idiot." Ricochet had just enough time to look up at the Praxan femme before a pair of glowing missiles arced out of the priest-mage's outstretched hand and hit her, blasting the darker twin away from the pit. She went flying and hit the ground several boat-lengths away. "I lost 'er once," Prowl whispered fiercely. "I ain't givin' 'er up again!"

"Y'don't  _ deserve 'er!" _ Ricochet snarled back, pushing herself back to her feet. She'd fought priest-mages before on raids and knew that as long as Prowl had the advantage of distance, she would just be able to pound the warrior with spells with impunity. And Prowl was a strange, foreign priest-mage of the sort Ricochet had only very rarely fought when boarding mainlander ships, with strange, unpredictable spells. About the only thing she knew Prowl wouldn't do was throw her spirit guide into the fray; the ship cat was far too small for that... probably. Ricochet needed to get in close enough to use her long-knife, her claws. She needed to get up, charge. 

"Of course I don't," Prowl hissed back, and Ricochet threw herself into a dive-roll a hair ahead of a branched flash of lightning. "But I came back. I  _ took _ 'er! As long as she wears m'mark, she's  _ mine; _ I will take 'er back as many times as I need! She's my  _ spark-resonant mate _ and Arcee'n I didn't defy m'chief an' nearly spark three wars so I could give 'er up without a fight!"

She was serious. 

But so was Ricochet. With a fishing-cat possessed snarl, she threw herself at the Praxan, claws outstretched to tear, to  _ rend— _

—Only to be tossed away by some sort of barrier, iridescent and almost not-there, like bubbles on the surface of seawater.

As Ricochet pulled herself to her feet with another snarl, webbing appeared all around her to tangle and ensnare her. Her hateful yellow glare was met by Prowl's determined one. 

"I," the bubble-barrier shimmered as Prowl moved forward, closer to Ricochet, "will fight you off as many times as I need." 

Ricochet lunged and snapped, the webbing tearing. Startled, Prowl jumped back, landed awkwardly on a rock and went down to the ground. Ricochet howled in triumph — the prey was down! — but was thrown back by the barrier again.

Prowl made a gesture and fire erupted inside Ricochet's frame. The fishing-cat possessed warrior howled again; she couldn't feel pain, but she could feel herself  _ burning. _

The flames burned hot and fast, dissipating quickly, but Ricochet staggered long enough for Prowl to climb to her feet to face the warrior again.

"I can't carry 'er'n run'n fight ya all at th'same time, Ricochet," Prowl panted. "I gotta hold m'ground until yer down'r gone."

Ricochet didn't care. She lunged at the priest-mage again. That shield couldn't last forever...

She was met by a spray of blinding gold stardust. Desperately she shook herself to dislodge the supernatural sparkles, but they were stuck. Unable to see, she struck blindly with her claws, and roared in triumph when the claws sliced through metal and Prowl cried out in pain. She lunged, trying to tackle Prowl to the ground where sightless or not, Ricochet would have her at her mercy and she would  _ pay _ for hurting her twin. 

Water, ice-cold and salty as the sea, hit her and Ricochet was tossed away like a katturmaram in a typhoon. 

Blind, sputtering, and off-balance again, Ricochet was helpless to another flare of  _ fire. _

The fishing cat spirit retreated to lick her wounds, leaving Ricochet on the ground wet, cold, burned, and shivering. Her spirit’s retreat had left her as exhausted and limp as a newly harvested kitten. 

Prowl had won, and Ricochet didn't bother moving from the ground, even when the stardust faded and she could see again. 

The Praxan approached cautiously, and Ricochet let her check her injuries. She smoothed a cool gel onto some of the burns, and bandaged them. She didn't tie up Ricochet, who was grateful the wretch knew enough not to try and take  _ her _ prisoner too. Even if she wanted Jazz’s stupid Prax (she didn't!), Ricochet was already mated to her own.

She pushed herself to sit and watch while Prowl hauled the not-struggling Jazz out of the pit. They murmured lovingly to each other, almost cooing, and Ricochet snorted in disgust. 

"Yer still a moron," she called to her twin, and they both looked up. A spell glowed around Prowl's hand just in case, but Ricochet only picked up a rock to throw at her twin, thwacking Jazz in the helm with it. "Bond fer all I care. Y'can have the idiot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! I have now completed the entire card! Woot! ೕ(˃̵ᴗ˂̵ ๑)


End file.
